After this Gian Galeazzo reigned alone in Milan, with no law save his ruthless ambition; and by this and his skill in creating political opportunities, and making use of them at his neighbour’s expense, he succeeded in stretching his tyranny over the plains of Lombardy and southwards amongst the hill cities of Tuscany. Near at home he beat down resistance by force of arms, while farther away he secured by bribery or fraud the allegiance of cities too weak to stand alone, yet less afraid of distant Milan than of Venice or Florence that lay nearer to their walls.
It was Gian Galeazzo’s aim to found a kingdom in North Italy, and he went far towards realizing his project, stretching his dominion at one time to Verona and Vicenza at the very gates of Venice, while in the south he absorbed as subject-towns Pisa and Siena, the two arch-enemies of Florence. This territory, acquired by war, bribery, murder, and fraud, he persuaded the Emperor to recognize as a duchy hereditary in his family, and at once proceeded to form alliances with the royal houses of Europe. The marriage of his daughter Valentina with the young and weak-minded Duke of Orleans, brother of the French king, though hardly an attractive union for the bride, proved fraught with importance for the whole of Italy, since at the very end of the fifteenth century, Louis, Duke of Orleans, a grandson of Valentina Visconti, succeeded to the French crown as Louis XII, and also laid claim to the duchy of Milan, as a descendant of the Visconti.[42]
At first sight it seems strange that any race so cruel and unprincipled as the Visconti should continue to maintain their tyranny over men and women naturally independent like the inhabitants of North Italy. Certainly, if their rulers had been forced to rely on municipal levies they would not have kept their power even for a generation; but unfortunately the old plan of expecting every citizen of military age to appear at the sound of a bell in order to defend his town had practically disappeared. Instead the professional soldier had taken the citizen’s place—the type of man who, as long as he received high wages and frequent booty, did not care who was his master, nor to what ugly job of carnage or intimidation he was bidden to bring his sword.
This system of hiring soldiers, condottieri, as they were called in Italy, had arisen partly from the laziness of the townsmen themselves, who did not wish to leave their business in order to drill and fight, and were therefore quite willing to pay volunteers to serve instead of them. Partly it was due to the reluctance of tyrants to arm and employ as soldiers the people over whom they ruled. From the point of view of the Visconti, for instance, it was much safer to enrol strangers who would not have any patriotic scruples in carrying out a massacre, or any other orders equally harsh.
For such ruffians Italy herself supplied a wide recruiting-ground, namely, the numberless small towns, once independent but now swallowed up by bigger states, who treated the conquered as perpetual enemies to be bullied and suppressed; allowing them no share in the government nor voice in their future destiny. Wide experience has taught the world that such tyranny breeds merely hatred and disloyalty, and the continual local warfare from which mediaeval Italy suffered could be largely traced to the failure to recognize this political truth. With no legitimate outlet for their energies, the young men of the conquered towns found in the formation of a company of adventurers, or in the service of some prince, the only path to renown, possibly a way of revenge.
The ‘Condottieri’ System
To Italian condottieri were added German soldiers whom Emperors visiting Italy had brought in their train, and who afterwards remained behind, looking on the cities of Italy as a happy hunting-ground for loot and adventure. Yet a third source of supply were freebooters from France, released by one of the truces of the Hundred Years’ War, and hastily sent by those who had employed them to seek their fortunes elsewhere.
Amongst those who came to Italy in the fourteenth century, and built for himself a name of terror and renown, was an English captain, Sir John Hawkwood, the son of an Essex tailor, knighted by Edward III for his prowess on the battle-fields of France. Here is what a Florentine chronicler says of him:
‘He endured under arms longer than any one, for he endured sixty years: and he well knew how to manage that there should be little peace in Italy in his time.... For men and Communes and all cities live by peace, but these men live and increase by war, which is the undoing of cities, for they fight and become of naught. In such men there is neither love nor faith.’
One tale of the day records how some Franciscans, meeting Sir John Hawkwood, exclaimed as was their custom, ‘Peace be with you.’ To their astonishment he answered, ‘God take away your alms.’ When they asked him the reason for wishing them so ill, he replied, ‘You also wished that God might make me die of hunger. Know you not that I live on war, and that peace would ruin me? I therefore returned your greeting in like sort.’